A New Book Reveals How the "Blonde Bond" Helped the Allies Win World War II

The cover of The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of Espionage, Adventure and Betrayal, Howard Blum's new biography of Betty Pack.

Courtesy of Harper Collins

Betty Pack lived a life so adventurous and cinematic that it's no surprise that Jennifer Lawrence has already been tapped to play her. In a new biography, Howard Blum chronicles the socialite's career as a spy and what today's intelligence community can learn from her career.

Who was Betty Pack, and how did you first hear about her? "Pack was a glamorous American socialite, born in Minneapolis, raised in Washington, DC, who had helped the Allies win World War II. She had lots of derring-do exploits, helping the British obtain an Enigma code-breaking machine, ingeniously stealing ciphers from an embassy safe that were crucial to the successful invasion of North Africa. Time magazine, in her obituary, called her a 'blonde Bond' who used 'the boudoir as Ian Fleming's character used the Beretta.' She had lived a consequential, exciting, and intriguing life.

"I first heard of Betty rather tangentially. It's as if I'd bumped into her. In the beginning, I had simply begun to think about writing a book about a woman. In all my previous books, I had never told a story centered on a female character. Perhaps that omission was caused, either consciously or unconsciously, by the tacit appreciation that I simply did not feel I could begin to understand what makes a woman tick. But now older, and if not wiser at least more battle-scarred, I'd begun to think I was perhaps ready for the challenge. After all, I'm the father of two daughters in their early twenties and I had one ex-wife. I had paid some dues (not to mention tuitions and alimony). Perhaps I was ready, somewhat prepared at least, to tackle this demanding literary challenge.

"But at the same time, I was also nudged on by another narrative instinctive: I like to tell true stories that are energized by excitement, suspense, and drama. Now I'd be adding romance into the mix. Was it any wonder, then, that I began to think about writing the tale of a female spy?"

Betty Pack

Courtesy of Harper Collins

Were there other women involved in intelligence gathering during the war, or was Betty one of a kind? "Both the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6) used female intelligence agents, some going behind enemy lines, working with great courage under nearly constant danger. But Betty's talents were unique. She used the double bed as her operational battle field. She coaxed secrets from the enemy. Her great gift—perhaps any spy's greatest talent—was to believe whatever she was telling her targets at the moment she was saying it – and then in the next moment to have no compunctions about betraying them. Betty's only loyalty was to the country and the spymasters she served. She lived quite easily with the moral ambiguities of her chosen profession. In that way, she was the perfect spy. The CIA shares a bit of operational wisdom with its new recruits: 'The last person to whom you say goodnight is the most dangerous.' Betty Pack was the personification of this warning."

What did you learn from her recently declassified files? "The files were a treasure trove. They cast new operational light on her many missions, and also revealed how significant they were. The Allied invasion of North Africa, for example, was a turning point in the war. Up till that moment, the future was looking bleak. The British had been chased from France, Norway, and Greece. America had been surprised at Pearl Harbor. And the Russians had fought the Germans to a stand-still outside Moscow, but the invaders were still on Russian soil. The successful landing of 33,000 Allied troops on the shores of North Africa was, as Churchill said, 'the end of the beginning.' It was the moment when the war began to turn. And the ciphers that Betty had inventively managed to steal from a locked safe in a well-guarded embassy helped ensure this victory. As Col. Ellery Huntington of the OSS said, 'it changed the whole course of the war.'

"But no less valuable to me then the declassified official files were the boxes of Betty's papers—a memoir, letters, a childhood diary—stored at the Churchill College Archives at Cambridge University. These allowed me to construct a psychological detective story: an account in Betty's own words and insights explaining the rocky path she had traveled to become this perfect spy."

What motivated her, in your view? "It is important to remember that Betty was a patriot. She was deeply committed to the Allied cause. At the same time, she was also driven by what she called her 'restless heart.' She had a constant desire for new adventures. She liked taking risks. And she also liked living with the roller-coaster emotions that came with moving from romance to romance. What made her special, and historically significant, was that she was able to subordinate the mercurial passions that ruled her life to an important cause. Betty Pack was the woman she wanted to be, and at the same time she was the secret agent the Allies needed."

It is important to remember that Betty was a patriot. At the same time, she was also driven by what she called her restless heart.

Could something like this story happen today? "We live in an intelligence age of eyes-in-the-sky, hacking computers, breaking into I-phones. The focus has been on what the professionals call 'elint,' that is, electronic intelligence. And this is a mistake that intelligence agencies are now realizing. If we want to know what the enemy is thinking, what he is going to do before he does it, we need to get human operatives into the enemy camp. The tragedies in Paris, Brussels, even in this country on 9/11 might have been avoided if we had agents inside the enemy's cells. And MI-6 and the CIA are now realizing this. Spy organizations are now openly recruiting women. The honey trap, as the professionals euphemistically call a liaison in the bedroom, is once again part of the tradecraft taught to new agents. In the Age of Terror, sex continues to be a spy's weapon. There are new Betty Packs being recruited to coax secrets from the enemy. Sex is the one weapon that never becomes out of date."

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